Sample Sangeet Menu

Picking your menus can be a long and daunting task. It’s important to maintain the right balance between intrigue and tradition, as the food is definitely a focal point of any event and 99.9% of the time, guests will remember what you served and just how good it was!

When picking your reception dinner menu, it is often a challenge to narrow down choices into vegetarian and non-vegetarian options. This is where the Sangeet menu comes in; it is a great way to allow you to serve all your favorite comfort foods that may not quite make the cut for your reception menu in terms of style or modernity. Here is a sample menu of Indian cuisine from one of our recent events, that left guests with their taste buds tingling and had them raving about the food for weeks afterwards:

Passed Appetizers

Manchurian cauliflower

Corn salad

Chicken Tikka

Black pepper shrimp

Lamb chops

Masala ceviche

Chaat station

Avocado Jhalmuri

Pani puri

Aloo tikki chole

Main Course

Kathi roll station:

Paneer

Malai Chicken

Grilled salmon 

Biryani dal station:

Chicken Biryani

Jackfruit Biryani

Black dal

Assorted breads

Uttapam station:

Coconut chutney, tomato chutney, sambhar

Dessert

Pistachio Kulfi with candied Pistachio in Mini Shot Glasses

Mango Panna Cotta with Mango Passion Fruit Sauce & Fresh Mango

SJS Real Wedding: Melanie and Neeraj

We are back in chilly NYC after a fabulous wedding weekend in Turks and Caicos. The entire week was a dream from the lovely couple to great vendors to the amazing view. Our bride and groom were able to enjoy the wedding of their dreams and it was our pleasure to help make that dream come true. 

Melanie and Neeraj hosted their closest friend and family at the stunning Amanyara Resort where guests enjoyed a weekend full of festive activities, from a sunset Mehendi event and a colorful Bollywood Soiree to a pool side Ceremony and Reception. 

Guests were left in awe the entire weekend thank to the amazing service from the Amanyara team as well as all the vendors that helped the events be such a huge success. Thank you to the amazing team that helped this weekend be so successful, especially to Susmita Patel for her stunning styling of our bride, DJ Insomnia and DJ Sam French for keeping the party going into the early hours in the morning, to Nora at the Peloton Group and her entire staff for the breathtaking decor event after event and to our fantastic photo and video teams, Our Labor of Love and Pacific Pictures, we can't wait to see the final products. 

We wish Melanie and Neeraj nothing but a lifetime of happiness and we hope this weekend was full of memories that you will treasure for ever. Congrats!

Spring Trend: Floral Dresses

Spring is in full bloom and so are Spring Dresses. If you are attending a wedding during this time of year its always fun to wear your brightest colors and most flirty dresses. Flower patterns are spring favorite and always a popular choice. Whether you choose a long maxi or fun short dress incorporate this popular pattern into your dress for a standout look. 

Here are some of our favorite floral dresses for this season:

Parker Black

 Adrianna Papell

 Asos

 Asos

 Oscar de la Renta

Our Favorite Invitation Fonts

All couples want to make sure that their invitation is perfect. Not only does it set the tone for your whole wedding, but it is a time to be a lot more detailed than you were on your Save the Date cards. Your invitations will give your guests all sorts of useful information about your wedding, so it is really important that aside from being aesthetically pleasing, it is also legible! There are no rules about what font you have to use for wedding invitations, but you really want to avoid using a font so cursive or scripted, that it is impossible to read, or sending out an invitation that lacks any flair or imagination by sticking to the more plain, block fonts. Here are our favorite samples of wedding fonts that will wow your guests:

Questions to Ask Your Caterer

Besides your location, the food for your wedding weekend will probably consume the largest portion of your wedding budget and be one of the most important factors in ensuring a successful event. Great food service will leave a lasting impression on your guests whether you are having an intimate affair or really big blowout. 

A lot of things come into play when selecting a caterer, so don’t be afraid to ask as many questions as you need to. Whether your potential caterer works at your event facility or you’re hiring them independently, here are some vital questions that are often overlooked:

1. How many weddings do you do per year, and how long have you been in business?
2. Have you done any events at my location before? 
3. Are you licensed and insured?
4. Will you provide a banquet manager to coordinate the meal service or an on-site coordinator who will run the entire event?
5. Do we have to work off a pre-set menu or can you create a custom menu for our event? If I have a special dish I’d like served, would you accommodate that?
6. Can you accommodate dietary restrictions, such as kosher, vegan, etc.?
7. What décor do you provide for appetizer stations or buffet tables?
8. What’s the difference in cost between passed appetizers and appetizer stations? What’s the price difference between a buffet and a sit-down meal? If we have a buffet, are there any stations that cost extra, like a carving station? 
9. How much do you charge for children’s meals?
10. How much do you charge for vendor meals?
11. Do you do food tastings and is there an extra charge for this?
12. If there is leftover food from my event, can we have it wrapped up for guests to take home or have it delivered to a local shelter?
13. What is the last date by which I have to give you a final guaranteed guest count?
14. What is your payment policy? Do you accept credit cards?
15. How much of a deposit is required to hold my date? When is the final payment due?

Questions to ask a Photo Booth Company

Questions to ask a Photo Booth Company

Photo Booths are quickly becoming a permanent fixture at most wedding events. Loved by adults and children alike, they allow for hours of fun and also provide guests with a fun souvenir of your event. When selecting a company to provide a photo booth for your wedding you want to find a vendor that will deliver a quality product at a reasonable price. When researching vendors it is also worth narrowing your search based on the location of the booth, as cross-country delivery and accommodation for an attendant is something you want to avoid paying extra for.

Here are some important questions to ask your Photo Booth vendor:

1.    How long have you been in business? 

2.    Do you have references? 

3.    Where are you based? 

4.    Are you licensed and insured? 

5.    How much do you charge?

6.    Have you been at my venue before? Is the company familiar with your venue, where to set up, the load in procedures, etc.

7.    What kind of back up plan do you have in place in case there is a problem at my event? What will they do if something goes wrong on the day of your event or at your event?

8.    What kind of equipment do you use? You want to make sure they use high quality professional grade cameras and lab quality dye sublimation photo printers in their booths. No web cams or ink jet printers.

9.    What are the power requirements for the photo booth?

10. Will you stay until the end of the event?

11. What types of packages do you offer and what do they include? Do their packages include on site prints, a web photo gallery, digital copies for you, scrapbooking service, etc.

12. Can the photo strips be personalized? Do they offer custom photo layouts? Does the vendor only offer photo strips or are other layouts available? Will they try to match the colors in your wedding?

13. Do you offer unlimited photos at the event?

14. Will there be an attendant operating the booth all night?

15. Will I get a copy of all of the photos taken at the event?

16. What style of photo booth do you have? Is it an “open air booth” pipe and drape or homemade booth? Is it fully enclosed offering your guests privacy so they can let loose?

17. How many people can you fit in your photo booth?

18. How many reprints do you offer on site? A great photo booth company should provide a copy of the photos to every person in the booth.

19. How much is the deposit? When is the balance due?

20. What are your overtime charges?